Fugitive's Flight (Dragon Castaway Book 2)

Chapter 7

Wyena's hand kept drifting back to her sword as she strode through the open-air market in the central plaza of the town. Like Jake she'd been unable to shake the uneasy feeling that someone was watching them.

She suppressed a smile as she felt a sudden burst of concern from Whirlwind reach her down the link.

"I'm ok, don't worry about it" she thought willing the feeling to fade. Despite receiving the bond from Jake some weeks ago it still never failed to instill a sense of awe and trepidation in her every time she felt it. Still, she wouldn't have traded it for anything in the world. It was the greatest gift that anyone had ever bestowed upon her and she was grateful beyond words Jake had trusted her with it.

Fighting the urge to blush Wyena forced herself to focus on the task at hand as she walked through the market, wrinkling her nose at the many pungent odors hovering in the air.

Increasing the pace of her stride Wyena's eyes darted from side to side, scanning the various stalls as she looked for a very specific type of merchant.

After several minutes of searching her gaze finally settled on the stall she was looking for. One of the few things in town constructed of wood, it looked plain but well put together. The printing press had been a recent innovation perfected only shortly before she was born allowing literacy and information to spread more effectively to lower ranks of society.

In the past she had so wished for the bygone days where she wouldn't have been subjected to endless society columns that she'd had no interest in. Now she couldn't help but marvel at how spectacularly the tables had turned.

However, neither the aesthetics of the stall nor recent technological innovations were what interested her. What interested her at this moment were the many papers stacked on shelves and hung on rods.

"Never thought I'd actually be buying a society gossip paper" Wyena thought with a grimace. They had always struck as ridiculously frivolous and filled with useless talk about things that were of no importance to the country. So what if lord so and so was hosting a garden party in honor of sir such and such? It didn't change the wider situation of incessant war with the surrounding lands.

Still, there was no other choice, it would be as close as she could get to finding out what was going on with her family without storming the estate.

Looking over the assorted papers she found what she was searching for. Located in a far corner of the stall sat a paper she recognized from the numerous times her mother had forced her to read it in the past. It was the country's society column, something that in her opinion was usually more useful as toilet paper than anything else.

She took a moment to stare at the fancy scroll lettering that ran along the top of the page and ruthlessly forced down the feeling of bitterness that threatened to rise in her chest as she picked it up.

Slipping the vendor a couple of bronze coins she quietly pushed her way through the crowd and took a seat on one of the benches that encircled a small grassy rotunda that somehow managed to seem peaceful, even in the midst of the bustling market that surrounded it.

Trying not to laugh at the sheer absurdity of looking through her most despised publication to glean valuable intel, she brought the paper up to her face and immediately let out a heavy sigh as she saw the portrait of a society woman whom Wyena only had a vague recollection of having met somewhere. She was dressed in the same type of poufy gown that Wyena had so despised in her past life. The caption underneath extolling the fashion sense and virtuousness of the person in question to the point of being outright sycophantic.